Public Bill Committee

[Mr. David Amess in the Chair]

Clause 29

Relevant services

Amendment proposed (this day): 24, in clause 29, page 37, line 14, at end insert
(h) the provision of care services and community care for P..(Mr. Harper.)

Question again proposed, That the amendment be made.

David Amess: I remind the Committee that with this we are discussing the following: amendment 25, in clause 29, page 37, line 20, leave out subsections (5) and (6).
Amendment 70, in clause 29, page 37, line 20, after services, insert
, unless such exclusion would prevent P from achieving the matters set out in subsection (2).
Amendment 49, in clause 29, page 37, line 21, leave out paragraph (a).

Paul Rowen: Amendment 70 seeks to deal with the situation in which all the services are not totally devolved. In the case that I quoted of someone going to university, it obviously made great sense for direct payments from the health authority, the local authority and the university to be put in one pot to provide a service. That worked out cheaper in the end, and also meant that only one group of people was looking after his needs. I welcome what the Government are planning.

Mark Harper: The hon. Gentleman outlined a particular constituency case of his in which a great deal of effort was taken to get organisations working together. One of my concerns stems from a point that was raised during an evidence session in which Paul Davies specifically talked about the difficulties that his organisation had had in integrating Access to Work funding. He said that the officials that he works with in the Department for Work and Pensions
worked their socks off to make it work.[Official Report, Welfare Reform Public Bill Committee, 10 February 2009; c. 8, Q4.]
Therefore, there was no lack of desire to make it work. It was simply that within the rules and regulations, it could not be done. That is why I want to ensure that the Bill gives Ministers the power to set the regulations so that officials, despite wanting to make it work, are not hamstrung by rules and regulations.

Paul Rowen: I agree with the hon. Gentleman. There are two scenarios. In the previous clause, we dealt with a situation in which an authority is not willing to allow direct payments to be introduced. When it comes to clause 29, where we are talking about relevant services, the question is how we ensure that the various packages are available. As I have said, the process will not be appropriate for everyonenot everyone will want to access direct paymentsbut we must ensure that where there are circumstances in which someone needs to do something, the Minister, through the pilots and hopefully on to the general, has the wherewithal to ensure that that happens. I look forward to the Ministers response.

Jonathan R Shaw: I thank the hon. Members for Forest of Dean and for Rochdale for raising these issues. There is a consensual spirit on the right to control. By talking about his constituent going to university, the hon. Member for Rochdale gave us a helpful illustration of the benefits that people could derive from such a scheme. He advised me in the margins that his constituent is now in his second year, and we wish him every success. The hon. Gentleman showed us how the measure can be practically applied, and the difference that it can make. His constituent is now in the driving seat; he is the one with the power. That may have been inconceivable only a few years ago, when we focused on what the producer provided. Public policy has shifted, and now there is a consensus that we want to empower the individual.
The hon. Gentleman talked why social care was not on the face of the Bill. I will come to that point later, but it is important to note that he talked about the primary care trust, which is about the health budget, rather than the social care budget that goes to the local authorities. I will explain later what we are doing about that. One can envisage its being easy to identify particular parts of a health budget that an individual is receiving. For example, one can see how chiropody services could be personalised. Dialysis, on the other hand, might be more difficult. I am talking here about providing that service to a particular community. The hon. Gentleman and I had a discussion about that outside the Committee. If a dialysis operation is to be economic, the number of people receiving the operation must be sufficient to allow expertise to be built up. I think people can understand the practical differences. That is why the Health Bill, which is now passing through the House of Lords, will provide opportunities for those pilots. In comparison with social care, it is a little less tangible and a bit more difficult to identify particular funding streams within the PCT budgets that one can put into a right to control individualised budgets.
We have experience in relation to social care. The hon. Member for Forest of Dean mentioned the pilots that we have already undertaken and we have had some evaluation of those, which in the main has been positive. It is not the promised land for everyone and we should not get too heady and think that this is the solution for every single one of our constituents, because it is not. In the pilots, a number of elderly people in particular found it difficult to manage such budgets. We perhaps need to find other ways to ensure that they are still in the vanguard in terms of shaping services. Again, there is a consensus in terms of public policy that that is what we want to do. So there is provision within existing legislation that allows us to direct for personal social care budgets. It is important for me to get some points on the record. Those were the immediate issues that arose from the hon. Gentlemans contribution, but I will make some further detailed remarks. Of course, I would welcome any interventions from hon. Members.
As I mentioned in the evidence that I gave on 12 February, to which the hon. Member for Forest of Dean referred, the exclusion of community care in the Bill is to ensure that we do not duplicate or cause confusion with existing powers. The Bill makes provision for disabled adults and therefore excludes community care and other care services that apply to people under the age of 18, as we discussed this morning. Disabled children have different needs.
Legislation relating to community care services is defined in the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990, which is an Act that I remember well because I was completing my training as a social worker at that time. Indeed, an interesting parallel between that piece of legislation and the Bill is that there is a political consensus. That bodes well for the people who are recipients of services. However, although we celebrate some consensus in terms of ensuring that the services are better delivered and of a higher quality for our constituents, it is important to remember that the Bill does not suit everyone. One of the criticisms of the 1990 Act was that there was perhaps too much of a consensus and not enough questions were askedthe hon. Gentlemen may consider that an invitation.
The Government set out their vision of the personalisation of public services generally in the cross-government concordat, Putting People First. Local Authority Circular DH/2008/1 set out what that would mean specifically for adult social care. It states:
Everyone, with support if necessary, will be able to design services around their own needs, within a clear personal financial allocation.
The circular recognises that
With self-directed support, people are able to design the support or care arrangements that best suit their specific needs.
The circular also sets out the system of personal budgets that will deliver choice and, importantly, control. The changes detailed in that local authority circular mirror the changes that the Bill sets out in order to achieve better public services. The right to control and the current changes to the delivery of adult social care will together enable the implementation of the Governments commitment to empower disabled people, and ensure that choice and control are recognised as a right.

Mark Harper: The Minister refers rightly to the steps that were taken in the adult social care area in relation to personal budgets and direct payments. One of the striking factsI know he is aware of thisthat came through in the evidence that we had from Paul Davies from Oldham metropolitan borough council was that of the 1.75 million people across the country who use adult care services, only 10,000 have a personal budget. The Minister is quite right: a personal budget, and the direct payments that may or may not go with it, is not the solution for everyone. However, only 10,000 people out of that 1.75 million have a personal budget, the evidence shows the benefit to many people of having one, and fully one fifth of those 10,000 people were in Oldham. So, with the legislation that is already in place and the welcome concordat that he discussed, does he think that we are going at the pace whereby, although those disabled people may never want to use the right, they will have the rightthat those who want to use it will genuinely be able to exercise it under the current legislative arrangements?

Jonathan R Shaw: The hon. Gentleman makes an entirely reasonable point. My constituents have individualised budgets, and I was speaking to a constituent recently. He fired his carers and got some new ones, whom he has had for the past 18 months and for whom he is full of praise. That is inconceivable for the majority of people who will not be in that advantageous position, so I say to all local authorities that if they can get on with such work, they should. A balance must always be struck, because there is a consensus around devolving power, and around authorities making those decisions for the people whom they represent, while the Government work in partnership with them.
The hon. Member for Rochdale talked about the PCT and health budgets, and the hon. Member for Forest of Dean referred to the Access to Work budgets and to the budgets for disabled children, so there is quite a lot going on. By finding out what works best, we shall be in a strong position to show the overall picture. If we do not play our part and adopt the approach that we have advocated, things will happen more slowly. We do not want example after example of the cases to which the hon. Member for Rochdale referred; we want everyonenot just local authorities, but disabled people and their organisationsto be very clear about the situation. I shall talk more about the health budgets in a minute.

Mark Harper: The Minister referred to the balance between directing local authorities to do things and giving them the powers, and we touched on it during the evidence-taking sessions. He is quite right that there is an emerging consensus around the importance of localism, but that is not an end in itself; it is a means to an end. It is about whether we believe that if central Government give local authorities more control, individuals will receive better services, because that is the end goal. It is all very well giving local authorities the powers to do things, but if disabled people want something to happen but the local authority is not very keen to get on with it, we must ensure that the disabled person gets the powers and the local authority does not stand in the way. How does the Minister think that the balance will be best achieved, remembering that the goal is to benefit the citizen, not necessarily the local authority?

Jonathan R Shaw: I agree with the hon. Gentleman that it is the consumers interests not the producers that I have at heart, but we believe that instituting pilots for the different funding streams will give us a better picture, so that all the arrangements that one can envisage being available to everyone in a few years time will be available more completely and readily. I do not go to the Department every morning thinking, How can I stop this measure? and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman knows that; I go to the Department to work with my colleagues across Government to deliver it as quickly and speedily as possible, but with the complete picture, so that we do not experience the frustrations that the hon. Member for Rochdale mentioned.
It is important to talk about health budgets, but they are separate from social care budgets. We should also accept that the way that we organise society and the institutions that provide such services are not really the preoccupation of our constituents: the consumer, the individual, the citizencall them whatever you want. Their preoccupation is how they live their lives, the care and support that they receive and access to employment or college, for example; they rely on a number of different services.
So we want flexibility to be available through a range of services, and that means exploring options available in many areas. The Department of Health is currently introducing legislation to pilot health budgets that will allow people to take direct payments, with patients being given a budget to manage themselves, with regulations providing clear guidelines. That is important. Personal health budget money may be spent, for example, on social care where it is likely to improve health or well-being. I think that all Committee members would support that.
With the right-to-control trailblazers we will be exploring the more flexible use of funding streams, too. People will be able to have more choice and control over how they achieve their outcomes. We will be looking for alignment or collocation with other similar pilots, such as on individual budgets for children and health budgets. We hope to present as seamless a provision of services as possible for peoplefor the customerreceiving social care direct payments, personal health budgets and a right to control services.

Paul Rowen: I am grateful for what the Minister just said. Will he seek to ensure that some of these pilots are coterminous with the health pilots?

Jonathan R Shaw: Yes, we will, most certainly. We will be piloting personal health budgets at the end of 2009 until 2012 and the aim is to build on the success of the social care individual budgets to give people greater choice and control over the money spent.
Personal health budgets could work in many ways, which could include having a notional budget held by the commissioner or a budget managed on behalf of the patient or by a third party. That is an interesting point in respect of children and those people who need a power of attorney, such as someone who has dementia, in which case the budget could be run by the family rather than the state. Safeguards are needed there, too, because there are advocacy issues to consider. It does not always follow that a family will act in the best interests of their relativeI am sure that we are all aware of such cases. In the vast majority of cases, of course, that is not so, but we have to safeguard against such eventualities.
Primary care trusts already have extensive powers to offer such provisions, but we will be seeking powers in the Health Bill to allow the pilot for direct payments for health care. To date, PCTs have used existing powers to create personal health budgets in relatively few cases, which bears out the comments made by the hon. Gentleman. Those that have done so have demonstrated that they can be successful.
Finally, on how the pilots for personal health budgets link with the right-to-control trailblazers, we will be exploring whether at least some of the right-to-control trailblazer sites can be collocated, as the hon. Gentleman asks, in selected pilot areas. It would be folly to miss that opportunity and the hon. Gentleman would be correct to say so if we did. We will certainly do that.
Can social care and other direct payments be pooled with personal health budgets? We hope to present as seamless a provision of services as possible for people receiving social care and other direct payments and personal health budgets, and those things should be pooled as far as is practical and legally possible. Doing so may require some level of auditing.
I hope that I have answered the hon. Gentlemans points. I welcome the opportunity to put what I have said on the record. I invite the hon. Gentleman to ask leave to withdraw his amendment.

Mark Harper: This has been a useful debate. I am grateful to the Minister for his assurances about the pilots. I urge him to do more than just commit to looking into this, and to ensure that at least some of the pilots use all the different funding streams, not just personal health budgets, and that we wrap in the pilots that the Department for Children, Schools and Families is conducting, and try to get them all working together.
The key point is seamlessness. In response to a question from the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley, Mr. Davies gave a very good response when he said that, in the experience of the metropolitan borough council,
where one is able to integrate those funding streams into that single delivery vehicle, wrapped around the individual, with that individual having choice and control, it works. What does not work is a load of bureaucratic jiggery-pokery at the back as organisations try to sort things out, and not always seamlessly.[Official Report, Welfare Reform Public Bill Committee, 10 February 2009; c. 8-9, Q6.]
The most important thing, in running the pilots with all the different funding streams, is to make things seamless for individuals, so that they can live their lives in the way that they want to live them, rather than trying to fit them into departmental silos. However, the test is whether that can be done without making the system so complex that it either costs an extraordinary amount of money to manage, and we have to put lots of money into administration instead of service delivery, or simply breaks down and does not work. If it is too complicated, all the organisations that have the power to deliver what is required might find that so hard that none of them will do it, in which case millions of the people who could benefit from the system might be in a similar position to those in adult social care, relatively few of whom have had the chance to access such opportunities.
The Minister has made it clear that his plan is to work closely with other Departments on the pilots and to ensure that there is proper integration and that lessons are learned. With that in mind, my final comment to him is that if it becomes clear, shortly after the pilots have started running, that things work, we should not necessarily run them to full length before rolling out the system. In those circumstances, it would be useful to take stock and see whether we can move earlier than that. Given those assurances, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 29 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 30 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 31

Power to make provision enabling exercise of greater choice and control

Mark Harper: I beg to move amendment 79, in clause 31, page 38, line 21, at end insert
including, in particular, making arrangements with voluntary organisations to provide disabled persons with assistance in connection with direct payments..
The clause gives Ministers the power to make provision enabling the exercise of greater choice and control, so it is one of the excellent clauses that relates to the very thick book containing all the regulation-making powers that was produced by the Minister for Employment and Welfare during Tuesdays sitting. The amendment responds to the concern that has been expressed about people receiving direct payment to spend themselves, and whether they are receiving appropriate advice and support on how to manage that money correctly. That concern was expressed by Liz Sayce, the chief executive of the Royal Association for Disability and Rehabilitation, during an evidence sitting, and by RADAR in its brief to the Committee.
The Government have recognised the need for peer support and advice on managing direct payments, and there are other options if people do not want to receive their individual budgets as direct payments. The report of the Prime Ministers strategy unit, Improving the life chances of disabled people, included a commitment to having a user-led organisation in every local area by 2010. I understand that we are quite a long way off that target and, given that 2010 is not a long time away, it might help if the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, the hon. Member for Glasgow, North, updated us on progress towards getting those user-led organisations in every local area. The Department of Health has carried out some capacity-building programmes, but it would be very helpful if the Minister gave us an idea of how many local authorities have a good user-led organisation that people can access for advice on how to use their direct payments.
I understand from the briefing material supplied by RADAR that the availability of support and information can make a huge difference in the take-up of direct payments. There is a direct correlation between take-up and the availability of support.
As Ministers have suggested, people who have not used an individual budget and a direct payment before may have many questions about how to spend the money, and whether they really want to take on the responsibility, perhaps of employing people directly. Actually, learning from people who have done that successfully about creativity and the different solutions that one can come up with is helpful. As RADAR has stated:
Being able to access quality support servicesbe they to broker services or manage payrollwill in many cases make the difference between someone feeling able to take a direct payment and just feeling it could all be too much hassle.
Will the Under-Secretary outline where we are in respect of user-led organisations in local areas? What further steps will the Government take to roll out such services, specifically as part of the pilot, and will Ministers ensure that peer support and advice are there to help people to make the best use of their individual budget and direct payments? If she could reassure the Committee on those issues, it would be helpful.

Paul Rowen: I support the amendment. We have talked a great deal about the provision of quality services and how some things are not appropriate for everyone, which will always remain the case. However, pilots provide the Government with a unique opportunity to trial various models of operation, which, in our view, might include some independent support to enable the transition. I very much hope that the Government will look at different models when they design the pilots.
There is an officer in Rochdale who is employed by Manchester and Rochdale councils jointly. His job is to get direct payments out to people, and he spends a great deal of his time advising and supporting individuals. An alternative appropriate model might involve voluntary organisations. In some towns, there are many groups that might take on such work collectively. If something like that could be included in the pilots, it would go a long way towards ensuring that this initiative will be the success that we all want it to be.

Ann McKechin: I welcome the debate on the amendment, which has raised important points about engagement with the voluntary organisations that have been central to moving the right-to-control agenda forward over the past few years.
Clause 31 contains powers that will deliver real choice and control for disabled people. It enables regulations to be brought forward that will allow disabled people to require an assessment of the amount used to provide a service, and to require that the authority consults them on how that money is used. This is intended to deliver our White Paper commitment to increase choice and control for disabled people in decisions about how public money is spent to meet their needs and aspirations.
The commitment was informed by responses to consultation and by advice received from disabled people and their associated voluntary organisations, which made it clear that the right to take a direct payment, which currently exists for those eligible for adult social care services in England, is not, by itself, sufficient to give people more choice and control.
Although the amendment is permissive, it would signal a firm intention to make such regulations with regard to voluntary organisations. We believe that the right to control should be widely accessible, and, as has been mentioned in Committee, that means that there has to be the provision of adequate advice and brokerage services. That will be an important consideration during the trailblazer project. Such services are also an important part of the implementation of Putting People First, our policy in England, and that will support the transformation of adult social care.
I understand the important role that the voluntary sector can play. The report, Improving the life chances of disabled people, which was published in 2005, clearly recommended improving the availability of advice and advocacy services, and it put an emphasis on the role of organisations that are led and controlled by disabled people.
I can confirm that the report set out a commitment that, by 2010, there should be a user-led organisation in every locality in Englandlocality being defined as an area covered by a council with social services responsibility. My understanding is that that timetable remains in place
User-led organisations are key both to delivering personalisation and achieving independent living. The Health Department in England is investing £1.65 million in ULO development funds to support the development of up to 25 action and learning sites. Such sites will share best practice with organisations interested in becoming a ULO, or in supporting the development of one in another local authority area.
The action and learning sites will focus on developing ways of becoming organisations that meet the life chances recommendation, and they will share that learning with other groups across the country.
The hon. Member for Rochdale made the important point that it is not a case of one size fits all, and that it is important to consider different models. Moreover, we have to remember that disabled people will not always wish to look to a voluntary organisation to support their use of direct payments. In the evaluation of the Department of Health-led individual budgets, it was found that many participants took the opportunity to involve their family and friends in deciding how to spend their budget to meet their outcomes. As we develop the personal health budgets pilots, we are placing an emphasis on avoiding prescription with regard to how information and support service are provided. We will be following that model for these particular provisions.
Key principles in developing the right to control are consultation and co-production. We want public authorities to take the initiative in provision. We want to engage with local expertise to apply as much of that as possible to the provision of advice and information that we give. That is why I am keen for legislation to avoid setting out prescription.

Mark Harper: Before the Minister concludes her speech, may I take her back to the point from the Prime Ministers strategy unit report? She mentioned that the timetable to have a user-led organisation in each area, which she clarified as one that is served by a council with a social services function, is still on course to achieve its target of 2010. I did not hear the update on how many areas there are and how many have user-led organisations. How many milestones have we passed on the way to 2010? Alternatively, will everything happen at the back end of the process?

Ann McKechin: I will provide the hon. Gentleman with an update on that before the end of the Bills consideration in Committee. I do not have the information with me today, but I will make arrangements to ensure that we can provide it for him.

Mark Harper: I am grateful to the Minister for that assurance. It would be very acceptable to receive the information before the Committee rises.
I am very happy with what I heard. Part of the reason for tabling this amendment was to get a sense of how Ministers envisaged voluntary organisations providing such advice and support. The Minister said that the Government believed that voluntary organisations had a clear role, but she said that there should not be a prescription that people should have to use them. I just wanted to ensure that the provision was in place. As she saidand I know that this has been the case with a number of people to whom I have spokensome people decide things for themselves, some talk to friends and family, some take advice from the local authority, some use voluntary organisations, and some have used all those sources to put together a package. We must ensure that such flexibility remains. None the less, if people want to take advantage of advice, there should be an organisation in place to provide it. Given the Ministers assurances, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mark Harper: I beg to move amendment 80, in clause 31, page 38, line 23, leave out from with to end of line 33 and insert
requiring a relevant authority that is or may be obliged, or has decided, to provide a relevant service to, or to arrange the provision of a relevant service for, a disabled person (P) in prescribed circumstances to do the following
(a) to support P to assess his own needs;
(b) to support P to draw up a plan (his support plan) setting out how he wishes those needs to be met;
(c) to support P to review and revise his support plan;
(d) to assess the value of any relevant services to which P is entitled;
(e) to notify P of the value of these services (his individual budget) and of his right to choose how his individual budget is managed;
(f) to comply with Ps decision about whether he wishes to receive his individual budget in the form of
(i) a payment to him (a direct payment);
(ii) a payment to any prescribed person for that person to manage on his behalf and in accordance with his support plan;
(iii) in the form of the provision of services by the relevant authorities which accord with his support plan; or
(iv) any combination of (i), (ii) and (iii)..

David Amess: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: amendment 26, in clause 31, page 38, line 23, after person, insert
, including a person with a disability caused by mental health problems,.
Amendment 27, in clause 31, page 38, line 23, leave out in prescribed circumstances.
Amendment 81, in clause 31, page 38, line 39, leave out paragraph (c).
Amendment 45, in clause 31, page 39, line 12, at end insert
(c) require a relevant authority to co-operate with one or more relevant authorities in connection with the provision of relevant services for disabled people..
Amendment 82, in clause 32, page 39, line 21, leave out subsection (2).

Mark Harper: One or two of the amendments in the group are on separate subjects, but amendment 80 is the one on which I want to focus. The amendment effectively rewrites a provision of clause 31, and I give credit to RADAR for providing the wording. This probing amendment was tabled to enable us to have a useful discussion about the thinking of Ministers in the Bill, as compared with in the White Paper. The amendment would turn around the measures setting out what an authority will provide for a disabled person so that the disabled person would be in control and the organisations would be effectively serving the disabled persons needs, rather than the other way around.
The reason behind tabling the amendment is that the policy intention in the White Paper was very much a system of individual budgets, based on self-directed support, with which the disabled person would have options for exercising greater choice and control, including, but not limited to, the receipt of direct payments. I concur with RADAR that clauses 31 and 32 more closely resemble a request just to get a direct payment and do not go towards providing self-directed support. Clause 31(2)(a) states that the local authority will carry out an assessment of the disabled persons needs, which suggests that the old model will be followed in which the professionals will tell the disabled person what their needs are, rather than the disabled person carrying out their own assessment and saying what they need. The White Paper said that the intention of the right to control was to reflect that the disabled person was the expert in their life, so surely clause 31 should reflect that intention. The purpose of the amendment is therefore to turn around the power so that the assumption is that the disabled person is at the centre, that they will assess what they need and that the authoritys job will be to help them in doing thatthat would be very much putting the disabled person at the centre.
The White Paper also said that disabled people would be told their resource allocationeither the resources available to be paid to them directly, or the resources spent on providing services to themup front, but the measures in the Bill simply enable the disabled person to require authorities to provide that information. In my view, the disabled person should not have to do anything to trigger notification, and the authority should provide that information as a matter of course. The amendment is important because clause 31 will be used to set out the pilotswhen we get to the pilot section of the Bill, we will see that this framework will be used to run those pilots. If we are to learn as much as possible from the pilots, it is important that they should be set up as we want the system to work, and as the White Paper said that it should, which is to put the disabled person at the heart of the arrangement, rather than having local authorities deciding what is going on.
Apropos the discussion that we have had about making sure that these things happen and that more people use the service, the benefit of amending the clause would be to tell the disabled person that they have the right to decide what they need and to make their own assessment, and that the relevant organisations have to support them. That would put pressure in the system, from the bottom up, enabling disabled people to say, I can organise things better myself, and to pull local authorities with them. With sensible direction from the Government abovethe Minister has laid out the direction of travelas well as such pressure from below, the amendment would make the Bill better able to help disabled people who want to control services to do so, and we would move further and faster, which would be welcome.
For todays purposes, amendment 80 and the two consequential amendments are probing, so I do not intend to press them to a Division, but I would like the Under-Secretary to think about what the White Paper said about disabled people being at the centre. I would also like her to think about whether the clause does that and whether the Government should move an amendment on Report to make that change.
Amendment 26 refers specifically to
a person with a disability caused by mental health problems.
I am not going to press that amendment to a Division either, because its purpose is to elicit from Ministers an explicit undertaking that when we talk about disabled people, we do mean not only those with a physical disability, but those with a mental health problem and those with a learning disability, whom the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley and others have mentioned. We should be explicit and encompass everyone with a disability so that it is clear to disabled people themselves and to the various authorities that we mean the measure to apply to everybody. Interestingly, the move towards individual budgets and direct payments was started as a result of parents of children with learning disabilities feeling that the provision of services was not up to scratch. I know that the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley has been championing the cause of those with learning disabilities throughout our proceedings but, in fact, it was the parents of children with learning disabilities who kicked a lot of this off. It would therefore be welcome if we made sure that there was an explicit commitment from Ministers that people with learning disabilities and those with mental health concerns were explicitly included in this process.
The only other matter to which I wish to draw attention is the one that we briefly touched on earlier. Amendment 45, which, if I may say, is elegantly drafted, is better placed in this group. It would ensure that relevant authorities and services had a duty to co-operate. I know that the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford, is keen for that to take place. In the evidence session, he said in that local authorities were at different stages. He also set out the direction of travel and said that the Government wanted local authorities to work together. The amendment would make it explicit that the duty to co-operate was there. Again, I do not intend to press the amendment to a Division, but the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, the hon. Member for Glasgow, North, needs to say whether she thinks that the powers already in the Bill put sufficient pressure on local authorities and primary care trusts, which the hon. Member for Rochdale mentioned, to ensure that they work together to try to deliver a seamless provision. It would be most welcome if the Minister could reassure the Committee about that.

Paul Rowen: Again, I support the sentiments of the hon. Member for Forest of Dean. In many respects, there is all-party agreement on this aspect of the Bill, and we all want to see it work. I particularly want to focus on amendment 26 because mental health and learning disability issues are important. It is acknowledged that people suffering from mental health problems suffer, and feel that they suffer, discrimination, perhaps in terms of getting a job and so on. The Bill is designed to do something to help to alleviate that.
When developing the powers for direct payments, it is important that the needs of that particular group and those individuals are not forgotten, although I am sure that that will not happen. However, when we consider the pilots, perhaps certain individuals and organisations could be worked with to ensure that a pilot specifically targets children with learning difficulties, or people with mental health problems, so that we can see how the measures will work out, because their needs are different from those of people with a physical disability.

Ann McKechin: I welcome the debate, which raises important issues about how we think that the provisions on right to control will operate.
First, I will deal with amendments 80 to 82, which would substantially restructure the aspect of clause 31 dealing with the powers to give greater choice and control and remove particular powers relating to direct payments. The amended version of the clauses would actually set out a more rigid structure for the right to control than that in the Bill. Amendment 80 would make clause 31 less flexible. The amendment assumes that the disabled person, in all cases, could be proactive, whereas clause 31 allows for other circumstances.
It has always been our intention that a disabled person accessing the right will be at the centre of the process and that they will have a range of options for how support is delivered. We recognise that disabled people are experts in their own needs and how they are best met. Self-assessment and self-directed support are therefore essential to the right of control. We believe that we need to take a bottom-up approach, and to work closely with disabled people, public authorities and other stakeholders to achieve that. We certainly do not see this as a top-down process.
The amendments do not capture some of the vital aspects of right to control. They would not allow the outcomes of the service to be agreed, in partnership, between the authority and the individual. That partnership is important, because it means that the individual has choice and control over support, but that resources are available to meet a set of agreed outcomes. The local authority remains ultimately responsible for the statutory outcome and can provide further assistance or security if required. We certainly do not see local authorities making the primary directionthis is about them working with disabled people.
We believe that the amendments would remove many of the powers that make the framework for direct payments. Without clause 32(2), we would have no express power to specify in regulations how and when direct payments should be made. We would also not have an express power to make regulations about when a request for a direct payment should be complied with. I think that it is important to be up front about the fact that circumstances will be prescribed.
Although we would normally expect a request for a direct payment to be granted, there might be certain exceptional circumstances in which a providing authority could reasonably challenge that expectation. We have committed to consulting on what the circumstances will be, but they might include cases where a person has deliberately misused a previous cash payment. Without the express power to make regulations or to issue guidance, we would risk creating confusion about what was intended by the direct payments legislation.
The framework of the right to control is deliberately broad. It is designed to encourage innovation and to reflect our commitment to co-production. We want the right people to design how this will work: disabled people themselves, voluntary organisations, agencies, and authorities that deal with these services every day. I know that the vast majority want to ensure that the system works better for disabled people. Being too prescriptive at this stage would mean that we would fail our commitment to co-production and consultation.
While I do not support the amendments for the reasons I have stated, I am certainly interested to hear suggestions about how the initiative could be taken forward and how the regulation-making powers in the Bill might be put to use.
I now turn to amendments 26, 27 and 45, which would have three key effects, although it is worth pointing out that if amendment 80 were agreed to, amendments 26 and 27 would be redundant. First, the amendments explicitly state that individuals who have a disability caused by a mental health problem would be covered by the right to control. Secondly, they would introduce an explicit power to require authorities to co-operate on delivering the right to control. Finally, they would remove an important clarification that the right to control will be available only in the circumstances prescribed in regulations. I shall briefly address each of those effects in turn.
On mental health, I can confirm that all disabled people who are eligible for the services brought within right to control will be able to exercise the right. We see it as important that people with learning difficulties are included in the trailblazer project. The evidence presented to us by RADAR and others highlighted the transforming difference that choice and control over services can have for people with mental health problems or learning disabilities. We are committed to enabling those people to have the right to control and to ensuring that the right is as widely accessible as possible.
However, the right to control will apply to disabled people who receive specified services, rather than to particular groups of disabled people. The framework of the Bill is therefore inclusive, and I would not wish to single out a particular group of disabled people within the broad framework.
The evidence that we heard from Paul Davies of Oldham borough council emphasised the need for different public authorities to co-operate in providing disabled people with greater choice and control. It is vital that people understand all the different ways in which they can choose to receive support. We certainly expect authorities to provide such information, and we can issue guidance requiring them to make it clear to disabled people what choices they have and the different ways in which they can receive support.
During the trailblazer projects, we will expect public authorities to work closely with each other, as well as with individuals and service providers, to manage the delivery of the right, and we will carefully monitor the effectiveness of the working arrangements.
On amendment 45, we already have mechanisms in the Bill and elsewhere to ensure that authorities work together on specific matters. Local authorities in England and their partners are already under a duty to co-operate in developing and acting on local area agreements that respond to a local areas priorities. Hon. Members will appreciate that different legislation applies to local authorities in Wales and Scotland.

Mark Harper: I just want to press the Under-Secretary a little on the duty to co-operate. She mentioned the evidence that Paul Davies gave us. When the hon. Member for Rochdale asked him,
Should a duty to co-operate be included in the Bill?,
he gave the clear and specific answer:
I would say so; yes.[Official Report, Welfare Reform Public Bill Committee, 10 February 2009; c. 20, Q22.]
His contention was that what was already in the Bill did not amount to that. I am grateful for the Under-Secretarys clarification that when the pilots are run, authorities of different sorts will be encouraged to work closely together. However, will she give a commitment that if, during those pilot schemes, it is found that the current arrangements are not satisfactory, the Government will look again at whether the powers need to be strengthened and whether a duty needs to be introduced, albeit with a recognition that, as I suspect, the authorities in the pilot areas will be those that are keenest to make this work? The problems will probably not occur in the pilot schemes, but will become apparent when the Government try to roll out the provision more widely.

Ann McKechin: I am grateful for the hon. Gentlemans comments. We certainly would prefer people to work together in partnership, and voluntarily, because that will give a greater level of service and provision to disabled people. However, he is right that we will be looking closely at the trailblazers to consider whether we need to make further regulations.
The Bill gives us the power to provide for regulations requiring authorities to work together on specific matters so that they share information or vary conditions attached to financial assistance for the purposes of the right to control under clauses 31(4) and 31(5)(b). Clause 31(6) also contains a power to require authorities to have regard to guidance, which will allow us to take account of the experiences of users and authorities in the trailblazing phase and set out further ways in which authorities should co-operate, both in general and in particular.
Amendment 27 would remove the phrase in prescribed circumstances from clause 31, thereby removing an important clarification from the Bill. It is important for people to understand that the primary legislation is a framework and that secondary legislation will set out how the right should work in practice, including by clearly defining any boundaries to the right to control. It is important that these boundaries are referenced in the primary legislation to avoid misleading people. I therefore have serious reservations about an amendment that implies that we are making the right available without limit and in all circumstances. It is not difficult to conceive of circumstances when the right to control may not be appropriate, such as when a service is universally available.
We intend to consult fully on the regulations so that disabled people and their organisations, providers and authorities can tell us how they want to manage these issues. Their advice will be crucial to how we take this matter forward. The consultations will allow us to work together to deliver a strong, inclusive and supportive regulatory structure. Given what I have said, I urge the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the amendment.

Mark Harper: As I said, the purpose of amendment 80 was just to test the Governments intention and see whether they felt that the Bill properly carried out the intention in the White Paper. I am pleased with the hon. Ladys assurances about the Governments intention. I welcome her suggestion about working together on how the regulations are drafted. Perhaps a useful step forward, as we move towards Report, might be for us to have a little more flesh on the bones in respect of the regulations that will be made under the powers in the clause than we have in the document that the Minister for Employment and Welfare Reform gave us earlier in the week. I should like a little more detail about how the regulations are going to be framed. If we had that, we would be a lot clearer about the Governments intention when we reached Report.

Ann McKechin: We will see whether that is possible. However, the regulations also apply to Scotland and Wales, and there is a different position with regard to local authorities, particularly in Scotland. The powers are given to the Scottish Government and if they want to mirror this type of trailblazer project in Scotland, they can do so. However, it is not our intention that the Bill should prescribe to local authorities in Scotland and Walesthat is a matter for the devolved Administrations.

Mark Harper: Given devolution, we will clearly see different arrangements emerging in the different parts of the United Kingdom. That is not necessarily a bad thing, because one public policy advantage of devolved Administrations is that they give us the opportunity to try different policies in different parts of the country, much as in the United States, where some states are able to try out policies to see what works. Effectively, we are being given a pilot scheme in a particular part of the United Kingdom, and although there are many downsides to devolution, that is at least one positive point. Of course, everything will depend on the extent to which the Scottish Government grasp the opportunities in the Bill, but I should like them, and the Welsh Assembly Government and the Administration in Northern Ireland, to do so and to use these opportunities to the greatest possible extent.

Ann McKechin: I am pleased to confirm that we are working closely with the devolved Administrations and that we have an agreement in principle on this matter. Obviously, they are advancing at different times, but the point of devolution is that we learn from different experiences, and, as I said, we will leave the door open to those Administrations to have similar pilots in their areas. However, I am pleased to confirm that, on the general principles, we have consent from all the devolved Administrations.

Mark Harper: That is very gratifying news, because disabled people throughout the United Kingdom will want to see how the pilots work. It will be advantageous to see if there are different lessons to learn from areas with different arrangements for delivering such local services.
On the point that the Under-Secretary raised about our conversation on mental health problems and learning disabilities, I must say that the reason why we tabled amendment 26 was to probe Ministers so that they were explicit about the measure. There was no intention to press the amendment. Indeed, it would have been an example of undue specificity, as the Minister for Employment and Welfare Reform is fond of sayingwe do not want too much specificity in the Bill.
On amendment 45, I was reassured by what the Under-Secretary said about how the Government intend to proceed during the pilot, and, as I said, we would welcome a look at how it works in practice to see whether more prescription will be required in the regulations. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 31 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 32

Provision that may be made about direct payments

Mark Harper: I beg to move amendment 28, in clause 32, page 39, line 44, leave out subsection (3).

David Amess: With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 29, in clause 32, page 39, line 48, at end insert
(3A) Direct payments legislation must include a prescription for any providing authority to take account of potential long term and multi-agency savings when considering what represents an unreasonable financial burden under subsection (3)..

Mark Harper: The clause includes provisions for, and gives powers to Ministers to make regulations about, direct payments. Amendment 28 addresses the extent to which a local authority is able not to allow a direct payment, and to what extent a disabled person can demand direct payment, because in the circumstances, the local authority will not have to pay. There is a range of reasons, if we are being generousexcuses, if we are notwhy local authorities can refuse to comply with a request for an individual budget to be converted to a direct payment, and there is a question about whether or not that gives the disabled person enough freedom to spend the money. The clause, by my reading, enables an authority to make direct payments in respect of the person securing the provision of the equivalent service, instead of their having to provide the service itself. The question is whether that, rather than giving them the money to spend, will give the disabled person enough freedom. What I want from the Minister is an understanding of the extent to which the presumption will work. If the person has their individual budgettheir resource allocationwill they be able in most cases to take it as a direct payment, or will the local authority have too many reasons or excuses not to comply?
Amendment 29 addresses the provision allowing a local authority not to provide a direct payment. It considers the words
unreasonable financial burden on the providing authority.
The amendment, which was proposed by Mind among others, suggests that when measuring undue financial burden, one should take a proper long-term perspective. What we do not want is for a local authority to say, If I fund a service in the current year, it may well be expensive this year. However, it could result in long-term savings. For example, it may enable the person to be more independent, and to get back into work, which would effectively support the welfare reform agenda that both sides of the House share. Moreover, savings may accrue in later years.
When making a judgment about the undue financial burden, we want the local authority to weigh up the short-term cost against those long-term savings rather than just looking at the present-year cost and saying, Because it is a bit more expensive this year, we wont do it at all. That effectively would mean giving up those long-term savings. It would be perfectly possible for the local authority to say to the Government that in return for some extra funding this year and next, there will be some long-term financial savings. That would be in everyones interest, affecting local government and health spending, for example.
The other issue that could influence the extent to which local authorities roll out the scheme is the funding and costs of parallel running. That came through very clearly from what Paul Davies and Liz Sayce from RADAR said in the evidence session. Liz Sayce said:
One of the issues that has been raised with us is that it can be more costly to double-run different systems.[Official Report, Welfare Reform Public Bill Committee, 10 February 2009; c. 19, Q20.]
A system in which we have individual budgets, direct payments and the existing provision in one area could be more expensive than moving wholeheartedly to a system of individual budgets and direct payments for most people. In the present economic environment, the focus of all parties will be to spend resources in the wisest and most cost-effective way possible to provide sensible outcomes. We do not want to set up two parallel systems that will create extra costs and burdens. The thrust of both amendments is to look at whether Ministers have correctly assessed that, whether local authorities will use that as an excuse for not doing such things and whether we are giving them too many tools to slow down the process. Moreover, when we are making cost decisions we must ensure that we consider not just present-day costs but costs in the future.
Real benefits can be derived from the success of the right to control. If we do all the things that I listed in clause 29, such as allowing disabled people to get into further education, higher education, employment and training to a much greater extent than today, we will find that as well as improving their quality of life and their life chances, they are also likely to be in a position to make a greater contribution to society. Hence, the cost to society will be lower, and disabled people will have a better quality of life. We should bear that in mind when we consider the Bill. I fear that we are giving local authorities too many reasons to say no, rather than giving them the reasons and incentives to say yes.

Paul Rowen: I should like to ask the Minister a question about the clause, and the amendments moved by the hon. Member for Forest of Dean. I particularly want to ask about subsection (3) and what is deemed to be unreasonable. Given that we are not talking about care services or health services, but about many of the services that will be provided by external providers or by universities or colleges, what thought has the Minister given to the definition of unreasonable and how will it be determined? As the hon. Member for Forest of Dean said, there might be a high initial cost, such as paying expensive fees up front when someone goes to university or college, but there will be a long-term saving if that person contributes to society during their lifetime, particularly by paying more tax. In the context of Jobcentre Plus and some of the programmes that are being run, how will the definition of what is unreasonable be exercised?

Ann McKechin: I welcome the discussion on these amendments. There is a balance to be struck between financial accountability and sustainability, and extending the rights of disabled people as much as possible. The simple answer is that we must ensure that there is no threat to public service provision. Clearly, local authorities have statutory duties as well as duties to their electorate. The right to control is currently untested, and we want to use the trailblazers to find out how to balance both short and long-term considerations, which the hon. Member for Forest of Dean has rightly pointed out. The Office for National Statistics has estimated that for those who have a right to control, perhaps 15 per cent. more are likely to find the ability to go into work, but we need to evaluate the trailblazers over time, so that we can calculate where the long-term savings are. The clause is about affordability and is meant as a backstop to ensure the sustainability of services. It is not intended to be an artificial barrier that can be used without giving due consideration to disabled peoples rights.

Mark Harper: May I press the Minister on her comment about the protection of public service provision? It is clearly important that local authorities should retain the ability to ensure the provision of public services, but if we roll this system out, the type of services that are currently provided will not necessarily stay the same. From memory, the evidence from the pilots on social care was that half the money that is currently spent is not spent on things that the disabled person would choose to spend it on. If we roll out the system more widely, we will seeas we might see when we do the pilotsthat what people choose to spend the money on will not be what it is currently spent on, so local authorities are likely to find that they will not be providing those services any more because people do not want them.
There will be a tensionwe have all seen what happens if a day centre closesbut if a day centre closes because most of the people who go to it, when given the choice, would rather spend the resources on something else and do not then want to go to it, it is right for it to close. It would not be right for the local authority to say, We want to keep the day centre open and to keep people employed there, if the disabled people who use it do not want to go to it. I know that would bring tension and make things difficult, but we have to put disabled people at the centre, so I was a little worried by the Ministers comments about protecting local authority provision. When given the choice, disabled people might want something quite different from what is already being provided.

Ann McKechin: The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point. He is right that there is a degree of tension because providing a day care centre involves a built costthe capital and revenue costs of maintaining the buildingand if someone wants a service provided to them in their home, or at some other location that is not owned or controlled by the council, that balance will have to be struck. That is why we want the trailblazers and the consultation process to continue throughout that period, so that we can build a body of evidence to allow us to make appropriate judgments on what regulations might be required if it is rolled out throughout the country.
The clause means that an authority will be freed from its duty to make direct payments if those payments would impose an unaffordable burden on the service or support. The Bills framework ensures that we can clarify in secondary legislation and in guidance what could be interpreted as an unreasonable cost. We wish not to be too prescriptive in primary legislation, but to develop workable guidelines in discussion with public authorities and disabled people.

Meg Munn: I seek to clarify this issue a little more, as I think we are dealing with two different issues. There is the point that the hon. Member for Forest of Dean made about the shift of services, and the implications for local authority services of moving money around, and there is the separate issue that any service provided by local authorities, if it were based just on peoples desires and needs, could ultimately overwhelm their budgets. Legislation, such as that covering community care, children and the matter before us, needs some protection to ensure that local authorities do not find that they are expected to pay for absolutely everyones wish.

Ann McKechin: My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Obviously, local authorities must be able to provide services to those who are eligible under statutory provisions, and they must have sufficient resources available to meet that statutory obligation, in addition to trying to meet citizens aspirations for the sort of service that they want in general. Their statutory duties and their ability to provide them must remain, and the sustainability of services, protecting public resources and ensuring that the right is affordable must be at the centre of the rights. There is no intention of preventing disabled people from exercising the right to control in all circumstances. Authorities will be expected to provide clear and compelling reasons for refusing a direct payment, and we will issue guidance to make the intentions of this clause clear.

Paul Rowen: I want to give the Minister an example to illustrate some of the tensions that could arise when the provision is applied more widely. A case in Oldham hit the national press, and I met the people involved. A direct payment holder and his wife decided that part of the money that was given to him would be used to employ a carer to take him to watch Rochdale football club on a Saturday.

John Mason: Waste of money.

Paul Rowen: Some might say that. The press picked up on that and used it as an example of someone wasting public money. It was not. His wife had an afternoon off when she did not have to care for him. The carer who took him to the football match was not interested in it, but he wanted to go to it. When moving to direct payment, such issues arise and one persons reasonable may be another persons unreasonable. The pressI think it was The Sunthought that that was unreasonable. I thought that it was reasonable, but that was not the medias attitude.

Ann McKechin: The hon. Gentleman makes a good point, and I have nothing against those who decide that retail therapy is better than going to a football match on a Saturday. The point is that carers are entitled to respite. That is the key element, not how the respite functions. There is a choice of how the respite is taken, but a carer who looks after someone 24 hours a day, seven days a week is entitled to respite. That objective incorporates the personal desires of the disabled person, their family and the people who care for them.

Mark Harper: The person to whom the hon. Member for Rochdale referred was a guy called Gavin Croft, and I had the pleasure of meeting him when I visited Oldham metropolitan borough council to meet some of the people with individual budgets. Apart from questioning his judgment about which football team he supported, as the hon. Member for Glasgow, East did, the example was a good one of an agreed outcome, which was not the success of Rochdale football club, but giving his wife a respite break. That was the objective, and it was achieved at a much lower cost, so it was a much more effective use of finance than some other cases.
As the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley said, it is right that there should be a back-stop to prevent unreasonableness, but the Minister was right to say that the objective is achieving agreed outcomes. Nothing in the process should drive costs higher, and the evidence from the social care pilots showed that when people were given transparency in the funding spent on them and a choice in the way the money was spent, in most cases people were realistic and motivated, and better outcomes were achieved at less cost. In terms of financial success, and in the difficult environment that we are in, the measure is a good thing and we will often get better outcomes at a lower cost than we are currently providing.

Ann McKechin: I entirely agree with the conclusion reached by the hon. Member for Forest of Dean. Often, the alternative provision will be achieved at lower cost and will provide better quality. In turn, that will provide more funds for other areas of care that that person may want. Ultimately, that is our objective. We are trying to work in a way that gives us a basic framework that people know we are working within, and that, over the next few years, as the trailblazers start to succeed, allows us the flexibility to get into the detail of how this will operate in practice and establish how we are going to measure outcomes. It is not difficult in most cases to measure what those outcomes will be. An outcome where someone gets respite care that meets their individual taste is clearly more desirable that a one-size-fits-all approach. That is the aim of the Bill.

John Mason: Although I support the idea of more right to controlas other hon. Members dodoes the Minister agree that it is a matter of balance? We need to consider the needs of the individual, but local authorities are under a lot of pressure these days and their budgets are tight. They are elected and have a certain amount of authority, so we have a duty to protect them from having their services chopped up into bits.

Ann McKechin: With the greatest respect, local authorities are there to serve the public who elect them and who reside in their area. The idea is to provide the best quality of services at the best value that can be reasonably obtained, using the services and skills of the many local authority workers, particularly in social care. The aim is also to work alongside voluntary organisations that operate within that area, and with disabled people and their families.
This is about achieving the best result for the taxpayer and the council tax payer in terms of level of service. Local authorities should not be afraid of that challenge or of co-operation. As hon. Members will be aware, in Scotland we have approached the matter in a somewhat different way in that, through the community planning partnerships, we are trying to get public agencies to work together in a better way and be more accountable to the people who pay for the services and vote for them. On that basis, I urge the hon. Member for Forest of Dean to withdraw the amendment.

Mark Harper: We have had a good discussion, with a number of interventions. Certainly, from what the Minister has said so far, I am reassured that there will be some clarity about what unreasonable costs are in the regulations and guidance. It is welcome that the Minister recognises the tension that will inevitably arise as disabled people make choices about what services they want compared with what services are currently provided. That will be one of the clear lessons of the pilots. Indeed, as those pilots are run, it might be helpful to engage with the media and explain that people will make different choices and that there will be creative solutions.
The interesting thing about the case of Mr. Croft and his wife was thatI had not seen the report in The Sun that the hon. Member for Rochdale mentioned, but it was certainly covered in other national newspapers in much more balanced wayfeedback from Mr. Croft, his wife and organisations indicated that this was a good way to achieve the outcome, and if the outcome is achieved at a lower cost than that of the official way of doing it, what is wrong with it? There was more balanced reporting of that case than I had thought might occur, so I think that we can be a bit more optimistic about the way that some of this might be reported. People are more open-minded than we might think when they consider what is successful and what is cost-effective, while remembering that it has to be for the agreed outcomes that the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley correctly put her finger on.
With that useful debate and the reassurances that the Minister has given about the guidance and the way that the regulations will be made, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 32 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 33 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 34

Pilot schemes

Mark Harper: I beg to move amendment 30, in clause 34, page 41, line 15, leave out paragraph (c).

David Amess: With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 31, in clause 34, page 41, line 20, leave out subsection (6).

Mark Harper: I shall try to move through the amendments reasonably quickly, because we have discussed pilot schemes at the evidence sessions and in an earlier debate today. The clause provides for such schemes, making it clear that, under the previous clauses, Ministers can make regulations for a pilot scheme and time-limit it for a period not exceeding 36 months. These are probing amendments, and amendment 30 tests how the schemes will run and what we may learn from them.
Subsection (4)(c) defines whom the scheme applies to, and it can apply either to a geographical area or to a specific class of individuals. The provision that I seek to delete states that the scheme can be applied even more narrowlyto particular people by reference to prescribed criteria or on a sampling basis. One danger with pilot schemes is that if they are chosen to run in an area that is particularly hospitable to them, where all the local authorities, primary care trusts and other statutory bodies are gung-ho about making it work, it may be successful but that will not give us a realistic view of what will happen if we introduce it throughout the country, where those factors may not all hold true.
Furthermore, if we narrow too much the group to which the pilot applies, we may not fully see what will happen in the real world. For example, if it applies to a small number of people, other services, such as brokerage and advice services, are unlikely to arise, because there will be too few people to access them. Another problem is that if the local authority has a small number of people to whom the new provisions apply, but it still has to provide all its other services, it will incur the costs of parallel running.
What areas are the Government looking at for the schemes? Will they be only in areas where the local authority and other statutory providers are volunteers? That would be helpful, but it would not give us a very good impression of what might happen if we introduced the scheme throughout the country. The Minister alluded to the specified class as a person, and, to see what works, we must ensure that different categories of people are given the chance to use the services. For example, we want to ensure that the schemes cover a significant number of people with mental health problems and learning and other disabilities, so that, across the range of disabilities, we get a fair picture of what works, what does not and what might need to change.
Amendment 31 would leave out an objectionable aspect of the clausesubsection (6). The Minister knows from the evidence-taking sessions that I have some impatience with pilot schemesperhaps it is just from being in opposition, and it will be knocked out of me in due course. I object to the fact that once a pilot scheme has been running for up to 36 months, it can be replaced by a further pilot scheme making the same or similar provision. I have a vision of perpetual pilot schemeswithout our ever coming to a decision. If we are going to run a scheme, we should run it and then, at the end, or earlier if we have some clear data, make a decision. We should decide either that something does not work or is not practical and therefore stop doing it, or that we have enough evidence, on the balance of probabilities, to move forwardwe should not have another pilot scheme.
The thing that pilot schemes miss, which we kicked around a little in the evidence sessions, is balance. It is right to make sure that, when we roll out a new system of anything, it is well designed and will work. Equally, we might have evidence, which we do from the pilots on social care, that that way of designing things has good outcomes for most peopleit can deliver better outcomes at lower cost. There is a cost involved in running lots of pilots and not rolling the system out across the country for three or four years. The cost is for the hundreds of thousandsperhaps millionsof people who would be entitled to the new way of doing things, possibly giving them better outcomes at lower cost to the taxpayer, but they are prevented from doing so, because instead of rolling it out across the country we are running a number of pilot schemes.
While recognising that we need to get things right, we should also recognise that we have already piloted individual budgets between 2005 and 2007 on the adult social care side. Those pilots have been evaluated and the Department has the evidence. Certainly for working age adults, the evidence was clear. As the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford, said earlier, there were some concerns and some issues raised with older peoplein some cases the pilots were not entirely successful. However, there is a fair bit of evidence already that the stuff works, and that came through in our evidence session, both from Liz Sayce and Paul Davies.
The new pilots in the Bill will only commence in 2010 so, if they run for the full three years, we are looking at the system not even starting to be rolled out across the country in 2013. In the four years between now and then there will be many people who could have benefited who will be prevented from doing so. We need to have that at the back of our mind as we press to go further and faster. I know Ministers want to do that, but unless we push a little harder, we are in danger of never quite getting to where we want to be.
If we look at some of the other organisations involved, there is clear pressure from outside about making this go faster. Sue Bott, the director of the National Council for Independent Living, has said that the pilots would cause unnecessary delay, given the Department of Healths piloting of individual budgets between 2005 and 2007. She said in a brief:
I feel that if theres an acceptance of the principle, then lets get on with it and make it
work.
Theres enough information on the ground.
Anne McDonald, programme director for community well-being at the Local Government Association, involved in the delivery of such services on the ground, said that there was a danger that people could feel piloted out and that the new pilots needed to be clear in what they set out to achieve.
When the Minister responds, she could set outperhaps not in detail nowwhat the objectives of the pilots are, so that we could know when they have been successful. It would be helpful if the pilots in the clause could only run for up to 36 monthsit would be interesting if the Minister could give us an indication of how long the Government expect pilots to run for, and an assurance that if, as those pilots are running, there is evidence early on about what works, there would be no necessity to run the pilot right to the end. Ministers should reserve the right to say, We know what works, we know what is successful, so we are going to get on with it and do the job.
The final authority that I would pray in aid would be the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which I mentioned in my remarks this morning. It stated that
it is disappointing that the Bill
or the talk around it
only proposes that this will be piloted in 2010 in a small number of trailblazing public authority areas.
The EHRC clearly wants the process to go faster as well. I am sure that Ministers are keen for it to do so, but the key is getting the balance between caution and making it happen on the ground.
That is the essence of my amendments. In conclusion, I again quote Mr. Davies, when giving us evidence:
I can well understand why people would want to feel the comfort of a pilot and see how that worked; I just do not agree with it. There is more than sufficient evidence to justify going straight ahead.[Official Report, Welfare Reform Public Bill Committee, 10 February 2009; c. 19, Q20.]
That is a man who has delivered such things on the ground. He is not a visionary in a think-tank, who does not have to make things work. He is the director of adult social care at an authority with a fifth of the national coverage of people with individual budgets, making this stuff work on the ground and delivering those services. He is clear that there is enough evidence to move ahead. Perhaps the Government could be a little more ambitious about the timetable.

Paul Rowen: I would like to pick up where the hon. Member for Forest of Dean left off and ask the Minister whether the Department has identified a budget for these pilots and if so, what it is. Also, how many pilots does she envisage and what is the time frame for them? As was said in evidence, there is a lot of keenness to see this rolled out across the country as quickly as possible.

Ann McKechin: The aim of the trailblazing is to test robustly how the right to control can be made to work in practice. To do that, we want to retain maximum flexibility in how the trailblazers are designed. We also wish to have the ability to collect additional evidence from further trailblazers, if necessary. The broad powers in the clause are intended to achieve that.
It is the Governments intention that the trailblazer phase will involve eight local authority areas. We have not yet chosen the locations and we want to discuss that with our advisory group, disabled people and authorities. No decision will be announced until the Bill receives Royal Assent. However, we have allocated £5 million on the basis that the trailblazers will commence from 2010 in England and we anticipate that the results will be available in 2012-13. That is the time frame we are currently working within. I hope that that reassures members of the Committee. We have not yet invited applications for the involvement nor have we considered the terms of the tender but we want to allow evaluators of the right-to-control trailblazers to use their expertise in designing the form of the evaluation.
The hon. Member for Forest of Dean expressed some concerns about amendment 31. I can reassure him that it is not our intention to run additional pilots. The provision would allow a new trailblazer to be set up if the planned trailblazers highlighted the need for further information or, for example, if there was a gap between the expiry of a trailblazing scheme and the national roll-out of the right to control. We would not want local authorities to be faced with a gap when they were not offering that service. The provision is designed for a certain amount of flexibility and to allow part of the trailblazer to start at a later stage if we find in our evidence and evaluations that we need to look further at different aspects of the right to control.

Mark Harper: May I press the hon. Lady on that? Her first point was that subsection (6) was designed to enable a new pilot scheme to be run when more evidence was required. That relates specifically to a pilot scheme being replaced by further pilot schemes making the sameor similarprovisions. That sounds like we are talking about rolling one scheme on, not setting one up. I am trying to tease out some different information, and I am not sure that that point is entirely convincing.
The second argument cited was very unconvincing. I do not want the roll-out of the scheme throughout the country to be avoided just by rolling pilots forward. If we have run a pilot for three years but are not at the point at which we can roll it out, we will not want Ministers to have the option of rolling the pilot forward. We want pressure to exist so that they have got to get things working. If we allow for excuses, we could be limiting ourselves to a few pilot phases, and when we hit inevitable difficultiesthere are bound to be stumbles on the waythere would be a danger that we would resort to the pilots, rather than making the scheme work.

Ann McKechin: We certainly do not intend to cause undue delay. However, there could be a genuine problem if, for example, the Government agreed to roll out the programme in 2014 and a local authority found that the 36-month period of its test ended in October in the previous year, because that would mean that there would, in effect, be a three-month gap. We intend to cover that possibility, not to provide an excuse or an undue delay. We want to cover technical issues during an interim period.
The hon. Gentleman is right that, to attain maximum flexibility, the provision would allow us to conduct a further trailblazer in another area. We want further information, not the same set of information for which the original trailblazer was set up. We want to ensure maximum flexibility, which is why all the regulations will be subject to the affirmative procedure. However, we also want to ensure that we are working closely with local authorities, disabled people, voluntary organisations and evaluators to ensure that we get the best possible evidenceI hope the hon. Gentleman accepts my reassurances on that.

Mark Harper: I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that assurance. One point of tabling amendments is to have a discussion and set some boundaries, and to make clear to Ministers what will happen when they bring measures forward.
We have had a good discussion about the nature of the pilots. I urge the hon. Lady, when the Government think about which areas to choose, not to look simply at areas where there are willing volunteers. If the pilot is going to be successful, we need to test it in areas where at least one part of the mixit could be the PCT or the local authorityis not mustard keen and needs a bit of cajoling. Given what has happened with adult social care, that could be more representative of the challenges that will be faced than if everyone is a willing volunteer.
Given the hon. Ladys reassurances and what she said about the Governments intention to move along quickly, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 34 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 35

The appropriate authority by which regulations under section 31 are made

Mark Harper: I beg to move amendment 32, in clause 35, page 41, line 37, leave out subsection (3).
The provision in clause 35 that caught my eye was subsection (3), which states:
Any power of the Secretary of State to make regulations under section 31 is exercisable only with the consent of the Treasury
why?
I can understand why the Treasury would want to give approval when regulations made under section 31 would apply to the whole country, because clearly that could have significant public expenditure implications and it is supposed to be the Treasurys job to control public expenditure, although it has not being doing a super job of that in the past few years, given the state we are in, but we will leave that to one side. The flaw is that regulations to run the pilot schemes are also made under clause 31. Therefore, subsection (3) says that, even to run the pilot schemes, the Treasury has to say yes. The Minister told us that £5 million would be available for the pilot schemes, so it is already approved. I am confused why, if the £5 million has been okayed, the Treasury is still interfering.
As we have said, individual budget pilots deliver better outcomes at lower cost. What is the nature of the Departments conservations with the Treasury? Where is the Treasury coming from? Is it nervous because it secretly thinks that the provision will cost a huge amount? Is that why it is retaining control? What has already been agreed with the Treasury, given the £5 million budget that was talked about? To be clear, when the Minister talked about the enthusiasm of the Department, he was obviously speaking for the Government. We do not want to see that everyone is gung-ho for the proposal only for the Treasury to come along and say, No you cant do it, not even the pilot scheme. The Committee would welcome some reassurance on that, which was the reason why I tabled the amendment.

Tony McNulty: This will sound like I am a game show host, but I am not. The £5 million is in the bankit is sorted and protected. Even if we accepted the amendment, the £5 million for the pilots would still be there, so the hon. Gentlemans undue suspicion and uncharacteristic cynicism is misplaced. Beyond that, the actual phraseology is lifted from hundreds and thousands of pieces of UK statute legislation. The provision is simply a recognition that things cost money. It is focused on national implementation, not roll-out. Shame on the hon. Gentleman for even using such a strangulated form of English. The national implementation needs Treasury approval, as well as approval across Government. I would read no more into the phrase. I ask that it stays in there to copper-bottom the enthusiasm of the entire Government, including the Treasury, for what is outlined in clause 31. In that spirit I ask him to return to his polite and courteous ways and withdraw the amendment.

Mark Harper: I am very pleased to be able to reassure the Minister. I had not realised that I had deviated from my polite and courteous ways. The purpose behind tabling the amendment was to get that reassurance. I am pleased that the Minister has been able to make it clear to us that the budget for the pilots is in the bank and sorted so that the Department will be able to move ahead swiftly. As I said, I recognise that for the national implementation of these proposals, it is essential that the Treasury is on board because there might be significant implications. I was just concerned that there should be no stumbling block because the pilot scheme regulations are going to be made under clause 31. The Minister has adequately reassured me about that. Certainly, if he is satisfied with the Treasury and he is perfectly able to deal with it, I am sure that we can be satisfied. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 35 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses36 to 39 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned.(Helen Jones.)

Adjourned till Tuesday 3 March at half-past Ten oclock.